The Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC)

I am now working for the Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC).

The Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC), formerly the Reliability Analysis Center (RAC), has served as a Department of Defense (DoD) Information Analysis Center (IAC) for more than 35 years. The RIAC, operated by a team of Wyle Laboratories, Quanterion Solutions, the University of Maryland, the Penn State University Applied Research Lab, and the State University of New York Institute of Technology, is a focal point for information, data, analysis, training and technical assistance in Reliability, Maintainability, Quality, Supportability and Interoperability.

Reliability Information Analysis Center (RIAC) : A Government and Industry focal point for Reliability, Maintainability, Quality, Supportability, and Interoperability related Engineering, Data, Software, Information, Training and Technical Assistance.

Cardinal Courier

I just finished the Cardinal Courier Website. You can visit it at
http://home.sjfc.edu/courier/

It took many long nights and countless hours to make. There are about 60 stories each with their own page and then 13 other pages that direct you to the stories. The hardest part of the whole thing was finding all the content on the Courier's computers. Also making all the pictures took a great deal of time. I think I might have gone a little over board on all the roll-over pictures. However, I think it makes the site a little more fun then just the normal boring newspaper website.

If I had more time I would find all the pictures that go with the stories and add them in. Also I would find all the extra photos that didn't get printed but are still good and add them to the photos page. Also I would like to add ads to the pages to raise money for the Courier. However, this might distract from the pages. It's a toss-up. In addition, I would like to setup a CafePress store for the Courier as another way to raise money. Another feature I would like to add is RSS Feeds.

There are also a lot of design issues that need to be perfected. I would like to find a good way to have the site fit in 800 X 600 and still be readable. Also there is a lot of white space that I would like to get rid of.

There are many other things I would like to fix and hopefully I'll get a chance to over the summer and next semester with the coming issues. Please check back and see my changes and hopefully you will like them.

My other idea to get rich through the internet:

My idea for getting free money and maybe also getting rich is simple. I would host a site called 5thousanddollars.com and would then plead with the people that went to the site to donate money to help me win a bet I have with my friend. The bet would be that I could not make $5,000 in a year. Then people would feel sorry for me and give me money at least that is the plan. I could also host tons of ads on the site to make a profit when people viewed it. A way I could draw traffic to the site is by abusing some free printing or copying service and make a flyer that just said 5thousanddollars.com on it in big bright bold letters. Just those words nothing else, besides maybe a clip art of money, but that would take more ink and thus more time to print. I would then spend a couple of hours and plaster every visible surface I could find (especially computer labs since people have easy access to the web there) with the flyers. People's natural curiosity would drive them to the site and I would make money. Also if I could make more money from people viewing the site than advertising to direct people to the site, I could then advertise with google adwords among many other internet advertising companies. I could also pay people to include an icon on their site that would direct them to my site. Basically I would just need as many people as possible to view my site and some one is bound to give me money, especially if I can have some way of making people come back to it often. That is essentially what ever web site needs; people to view the site and a reason for them to view it again.

My thoughts about an e-commerce site I would like to create in order to become rich

My idea for an e-commerce site I would like to create in order to become rich is to make a series of websites for different cities, at first in New York, then the U.S., eventually the world. The site would be modeled after ThePulse.com. The Pulse is a website that acts as a city guide for Utica, NY.
I would like to take this idea expand on it by making city guides for cities all around the world. I would also expand on their idea by adding a page for local bands, artists, and craftspeople to add their music, pictures, ect., and then sell their goods. Also bands could put up when and where they were playing, and artists could say where their art is being displayed. I would also add a page called what to do in the city besides just the events page. Another neat idea would be a history of the city and fun facts about the city.
Because there would be multiple city guides, I would have one main page on which the users could pick, from a list, the country and city and state they would like to know about.
I would make money with the advertising on the site which would be geared toward the inhabitant of the city the page is about. Also, after the site had grown in popularity, I could start to charge people to have their business/ band / event / ect. on the site.
I know that I would use this resource because I am always looking for something to do in my town or in Rochester and it would be nice to have all that information in one place and not have to search around many different sites to find what I want.

My thoughts about how the internet is helping or hurting society

I would say the internet is both helping and hurting society. However, you seem to hear more about how the internet hurts society and all the bad things that are associated with the internet being bad. This is probably because bad news is more interesting to most people.

There are many ways the internet helps society. Some examples are:
1) E-commerce sites. E-commerce has change the way many companies do business. And it has started all new businesses. Society can now buy pretty much anything off the internet. Also many people who would have never opened their own shop to sell their stuff like hand-made jewelry or their collection of souvenir key chains, can easily open their own internet shop on something like E-bay or Amazon
2) Government Sites. The Government has added many websites for their many departments. Now things like your taxes and the FASFA form online and submit them instantly. Allowing for government functions to be quicker and require less people to do the work and thus costing the citizens less money.

There are also many ways the internet hurts society. It seems like for every site that helps society there is a porn cite or creepy person on the internet. Some examples are:
1) Porn sites. Porn seems to be a growing industry on the internet. It is getting harder and harder for a parent to keep their kids from seeing this objectionable material.
2)Creepy people. Also, there are growing number of creepy people on the internet and everyone has to be extra careful of someone getting your real information and stalking you or stealing your identity or giving you viruses.

My thoughts about how the internet will help me in my intended career

Well my intended career would be in something having to do with computer science, that is my major after all. I would really like to have a career in web design since I love making websites for people so much. My only problem is that I feel like I don't know nearly enough about the internet, computer science, programming, and web design. Also I don't feel like I can learn all I want to know hear at Fisher. I would really like to know how to make websites in Flash because that seems to be the upcoming trend in commercial websites like Coke.com. However their is not a class just on Flash at Fisher. I would also like to learn about PHP and SQL. Another feature I would like to know how to do so I could offer it to my clients is to be able to just have the client type into a form and update his or her site. Another thing I have a lot of trouble with is the graphic part of my websites. I would like to take a graphic design class or two because I can't draw and unless I have graphics from the clients its hard to make my own. What I really like doing is taking a crappy site and making it better. More web development then web design I guess.

Well I should get to question.

How the internet would help me in my intended career...

It would help me a great deal considering I want to be a web designer and my job would revolve around the internet and websites. Basically, I would need the internet to allow me to have a job and to generate my paycheck. Specifically, I would need the internet to post my websites. I guess the internet would also be important in finding new customers. What I would do is scan the internet for local businesses with crappy websites or make sure that the business did not have a website already and then approach them about having me make them a website. Basically the best way to answer this question is to say that the internet would help me in my intended career because working with it is my intended career.

HAPPY St. PATRICK's DAY!

For your BLOG, you should include commentary on the following topics:

As I said this blog was made because it is an assignment for my CSCI 170 (Internet Resources). As part of the blog I need to include commentary on the following topics:

• Your thoughts / observations about your final project


• Your thoughts about an e-commerce site you would like to create in order to become rich OR
  Your thoughts about a site you would like to create in order to help society.


• Your thoughts about how the internet is helping or hurting society. (This is a broad topic.)


• Your thoughts about how the internet will help you in your intended career

I plan on writing about each one of these, each in their own post, over the next few weeks along with some other stuff.

History of LateKnightDesigns.com

I had been wanting to make my own web site for some time but had not gotten around to it. I had been doing extensive research into domain names and web hosting and where the best prices where and who was the most reliable. My web design teacher from a previous semester had said that he uses Netfirms for his web design firm and that they were really reliable. So I had decided that when I had some money and time and some of the site design done I would buy the domain name (read my profile for why LateKnightDesigns became my domain name) and make the site. However, I had become very busy at school and almost forgotten the whole idea. Then on the weekend of the Super Bowl I was at my girlfriend's College watching the game when a commercial for GoDaddy.com came on. I think this is where my girlfriend got her idea. She had decided to buy me the domain name for valentines day. So she bought it from GoDaddy on February 9th without me knowing. She made a mistake though because she used my email address and all my information so I found out later that night. I was kinda disappointed at first because I had wanted to make it with Netfirms not GoDaddy. Also my girlfriend had just brought the domain name and not the hosting so I could not make my own website I had to pick from some crappy templates. It was ok though cause she didn't know any better and I love her for trying. After trying several things to have the domain name transferred to Netfirms and failing, I decided to try hosting with GoDaddy for just 2 months it was like $3.95 for each month so I figured I could try it and if I didn't like it, I could still switch to Netfirms after the 2 months. GoDaddy turned out to be great and my girlfriend buying the domain name from there turned out to be a really good thing. So then all I had to make my site. I really didn't have enough time to do it while I was in school so I just put some basic information and most of the pages just said "under construction". Finally, spring break came and I spent basically 3 whole days designing and making my site. Also during that time I searched for internship at some local web design firms. I want to get some real world experience in the web design / development field. By the end of spring break I had the site pretty much how would like it to be but I know I will continue to change it because I am a little bit of a perfectionist with my websites and I always need to change something. However most of the time when I change something it turns out to be more of a headache then anything because it always seems like when I fix one thing another thing breaks. That's probably what most the posts on this blog are going to be; just me ranting about how something didn't work. O well... I hope you check back often to see what kinds of problems arise for me.

Welcome

Welcome to Late Knight Blogging. This is the first blog I have ever made. It was started as an assignment for Internet Resources CSCI 170 at St. John Fisher College and will be continued as both a personal blog for me and a news updater for LateKnightDesigns.com. I will hopefully have time to update it daily and tell you what is happening in my life and the life of Late Knight Designs. I hope this blog is both informative and enjoyable reading. Please check back often for new posts.